h a great many little thrills of bliss and hope.

Nothing happened to dissipate the good omens with which her partnership
with Verena Tarrant was at present surrounded. They threw themselves
into study; they had innumerable big books from the Athenaeum, and
consumed the midnight oil. Henry Burrage, after Verena had shaken her
head at him so sweetly and sadly, returned to New York, giving no sign;
they only heard that he had taken refuge under the ruffled maternal
wing. (Olive, at least, took for granted the wing was ruffled; she could
fancy how Mrs. Burrage would be affected by the knowledge that her son
had been refused by the daughter of a mesmeric healer. She would be
almost as angry as if she had learnt that he had been accepted.)
Matthias Pardon had not yet taken his revenge in the newspapers; he was
perhaps nursing his thunderbolts; at any rate, now that the operatic
season had begun, he was much occupied in interviewing the principal
singers, one of whom he described in one of the leading journals (Olive,
at least, was sure it was only he who could write like that) as "a dear
little woman with baby dimples and kittenish movements." The Tarrants
were apparently given up to a measure of sensual ease with which they
had not hitherto been familiar, thanks to the increase of income that
they drew from their eccentric protectress. Mrs. Tarrant now enjoyed the
ministrations of a "girl"; it was partly her pride (at any rate, she
chose to give it this turn) that her house had for many years been
conducted without the element--so debasing on both sides--of servile,
mercenary labour. She wrote to Olive (she was perpetually writing to her
now, but Olive never answered) that she was conscious of having fallen
to a lower plane, but she admitted that it was a prop to her wasted
spirit to have some one to converse with when Selah was off. Verena, of
course, perceived the difference, which was inadequately explained by
the theory of a sudden increase of her father's practice (nothing of her
father's had ever increased like that), and ended by guessing the cause
of it--a discovery which did not in the least disturb her equanimity.
She accepted the idea that her parents should receive a pecuniary
tribute from the extraordinary friend whom she had encountered on the
threshold of womanhood, just as she herself accepted that friend's
irresistible hospitality. She had no worldly pride, no traditions of
independence, no ideas of what was